Scotland’s Deputy First Minister has said the piles of rubbish building up throughout Edinburgh are “deeply concerning” for public health.
John Swinney spoke out as unions warned the dispute over local government pay - which saw cleansing staff in the capital walk out on strike last week - could become a “winter of discontent”.
Cleansing staff in Edinburgh have been out on strike since 18 August, with the action timed to coincide with the summer festivals.
But this has now escalated, with waste workers in 13 other local authorities - including Glasgow, Dundee and Aberdeen - joining the protest, while schools in some areas could be forced to close next month if staff there join the walkout.
Crisis talks are taking place this afternoon between union, government and council leaders over the Scottish local government pay offer.
Unions, which are demanding urgent talks with Swinney, want the Scottish Government to step in and find more cash to resolve the pay dispute.
He said: “I think the condition of the city of Edinburgh just now is deeply concerning on a host of levels, not least in relation to public health.
“So I acknowledge the significance of the issue which is why I want to see the industrial action resolved, why I would prefer it didn’t spread to other parts of the country.”
Swinney stressed that the Scottish Government had already provided £140m to councils - with this cash helping fund the improved offer of 5% - and insisted he has “no legal standing” to negotiate a deal to end the strikes.
He met union leaders on Wednesday evening and said afterwards that while he is “determined to be helpful”, it is up to unions and employers at the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) to end the dispute.
Swinney told BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland programme: “I can’t negotiate this agreement, I am not the employer, I have no legal standing to negotiate.”
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar hit out at ministers over their handling of the dispute, saying: “I would get people around the table, I would get COSLA around the table.
“I’d be getting the unions round the table and I’d be working day and night to get an answer to this dispute, not the dither, delay and disinformation we’ve seen from the SNP.”
The situation in Edinburgh is not a local dispute, he added, but rather a national dispute.
His comments came as Unite regional officer Wendy Dunsmore said Scottish ministers needed to match the £1,925 pay rise being given to local government workers in the rest of the UK.
The 5% on offer will see workers in Scotland receive an average of £900 a year more she said, as she insisted the unions were “here for the long haul”.
Dunsmore told BBC Radio Scotland: “Our first wave was in Edinburgh, the second wave is waste across Scotland, our third wave is going to be schools.
“And it may not stop at schools, we’re in here for the long haul.”
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has already made clear the Scottish Government does not have a “bottomless pit of money” to resolve the dispute.
In the Scottish capital, which has seen its streets strewn with litter and bins overflowing, council leader Cammy Day said he was “disappointed” a deal had not been reached.
“This is a national crisis playing out in Edinburgh’s streets during our busiest and most important time of the year,” he said. “And while this clearly shows the value of our waste teams’ work, it also demonstrates a national failure to find an acceptable resolution.”
As well as the action by waste workers, the strike is set to spread to school and nursery staff in nine council areas.
Unison and the GMB have said their members will walk out between 6 and 8 September, a move that will see schools, early years centres and nurseries disrupted in Aberdeenshire, East Renfrewshire, Glasgow City, Inverclyde, Orkney, North Lanarkshire, South Lanarkshire and Stirling.
COSLA resources spokesperson councillor Katie Hagmann said: “We fully understand that our trade union colleagues want the best possible deal for their members, especially given the concerns many within our workforce have around the cost of living crisis we are currently facing.
“That is why we as employers have done everything possible to put the best offer we can to them in the context of the extremely challenging financial circumstances Scotland’s councils have been and are continuing to face.”
She insisted the new offer would see the lowest paid 12% of workers receive an increase above 5% – adding this was “one of, if not the best offer in decades for Scottish local government workers”.
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